thanks to the wonderful hospitality of the Sammamish Daveys Clan, i was
invited to view and photograph the Mandarin Duck that has been cavorting
with the neighbourhood Mallards the past four days. He seems to be quite
content to forage and swim with his new-found friends, and more notably, he
doesn't appear to be spooked by the presence of humans or aggressive drake
MALLs.

A question was asked that I couldn't answer: do Mandarins mate with
non-Mandarins? as MALLs will mate with lampposts and doorknobs (and other
duck species, by the way), and Mandarins look like second-cousins of
Woodies, it'd be interesting to know if we should be on the lookout (should
he stick around long enough) for little whatchamacallits on the lake come
spring...

Is he an escapee? He's not tagged in any way I could see, and flight
feathers are intact... Anyway, photos are available in the Photos of the
Month gallery... I have a feeling he will show up in next month's free Park
Gallery calendar... :)

Oh. some of you will notice that not all in today's gallery viewing are
true photographs. A few weeks ago, someone told me I had a "style" that was
predictable... At first, I was confused, then flattered, and finally
contemplative. So, I find myself challenged to take some baby steps towards
shaking things up. images that aren't true photos started as photos and,
while not everyone's cup of tea, I submit some of them are fascinating in
their own rights... Most of the altered works have the "real" one to
compare against. unfortunately, not all look good after being compressed
for web viewing, but this is also part of the experiment...

personally, i prefer "real" over "manipulated" for most of my images, but I
can't honestly say manipulated cannot turn out interesting entertainment...
Call it art, call it excrement, call it whatever...

Let me know if you like, hate, despise, love, whatever... And thanks for
viewing, and i hope you enjoy :)